


Crumbling Palace

by MaybeSherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Rape/Non-con Elements, Sherlock Whump, Tortured Sherlock Holmes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-10
Updated: 2019-10-14
Packaged: 2020-06-25 23:54:13
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 12,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19756336
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MaybeSherlock/pseuds/MaybeSherlock
Summary: Sherlock is abducted and tortured by a convicted suspect he was responsible for collecting enough evidence to turn up a guilty verdict. The guilty party seeks to make Sherlock suffer for his part of the investigation and uses Molly against him in ways Sherlock has not considered.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Warning:  
> This gets violent and I work in the ER at a Trauma hospital, so you can expect it to get a bit graphic in the description. If that will bother you, I'd say this fic isn't for you.

Dr. John Watson woke suddenly to a frantic pounding at the front door of 221B Baker Street. He could hear his name being called from the step, the voice was frightened and urgent. Throwing off the sheets and thundering down the stairs John hollered, "For Christ's sake! I'm coming!" It was a fortunate thing Mrs. Hudson was on a holiday because whoever was at the front door would be dead in seconds. 

When John opened the door, Molly practically knocked him in the face with a fist on track to hit the front door. Instinctively, he snatched her hand out of the air and pulled her body to his. He held her tightly as her first impulse was to struggle from his arms. 

"Molly!" John said with authority he hoped would ground her. When John spoke her name, Molly instantly clung to him. She was hot despite the temperature at this time of night and an Autumn storm in the air. Her heart was racing; John could feel every frenzied beat through her rain jacket and his cotton t-shirt. 

John set Molly down and closed the door against the chill. "Molly, what in the hell is going on?"

"It just showed up on my phone! I can't get it off! It won't turn off, I couldn't even call anyone!" Molly said in a panic.

"What are you talking abo..." John began to ask, but stopped abruptly when Molly produced her phone in front of his face. On the screen a man was kneeling in a dark vast room. His arms were apparently bound behind his body and his head hung low. The only light source came from behind the recording device and it cast a large diameter of light in the otherwise darkened building. The light revealed a bright blood stain darkening the neck and shoulder of the once brilliantly white tuxedo shirt. However, the blood stain was not the only shade of red on the man's shirt. Five glowing sight lazer beams were dancing on the man's chest. 

The camera must have been several yards from the man, but it was zoomed in and focused with precision. There was no question, "Sherlock..." John whispered and looked into Molly's frightened eyes. 

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It had been a dull production, as Sherlock well predicted. Sherlock’s parents had been in town for the weekend and insisted their sons attend a concert with them before they left that evening. The taxi ride home was a welcomed silence for Sherlock after the commotion of the orchestra. Sherlock closed his eyes, steepled his hands under his chin, and opened the doors to his Mind Palace. The halls were silent except for the sound of his echoing footsteps as he strode the hallways looking for the room that held his own compositions. 

Two thirds of the way through a rather melodic piece, Sherlock’s taxi rolled to a stop in front of 221B Baker Street. With unexpected courtesy, Sherlock assumed it was the tuxedo that commanded the formality, the driver of the taxi exited the cab and hustled around the front to open the door for his high class passenger. 

The image of the driver standing before him with a sinister grin crawling across his face was the last thing Sherlock saw before the driver hit him across the temple and kicked his limp body back into the cab. 

When Sherlock woke, it was to a bright light shining directly at him. He had been lain on his side with his hands bound behind his back. The ground he lay upon was smooth, cold concrete that was unforgiving to his throbbing head and aching shoulder. Sherlock’s attempt to right himself to his knees brought stars into his vision and a flash of nausea to his gut. He held himself steady and took slow, deep breaths until the nausea passed. 

“So,” Sherlock thought to himself. “Blunt force trauma to the left temporal and parietal bone resulting in a mild concussion and significant laceration based on the blood still oozing down previously dried blood on my neck. Kidnapped, blindfolded, and apparently left abandoned.” 

Sherlock knew that his last deduction would soon prove to be false. During his career, he learned that the type of enemies he had acquired liked to play with their food before they ate it. And right on cue, resounding foot steps from from roughly forty feet away began their approach. The sound the designer shoes made in the structure manifested an annoying parallel to the peaceful sound his own shoes made in his Mind Palace a short time ago.


	2. Chapter 2

The black limousine barley made a rolling stop when Molly and John rushed into the back seat. Mycroft's man had made it to Baker Street in record time and was soon racing to Mycroft's office. 

Once together, Molly and John both began to explain and show Mycroft Molly's phone when he held up a hand to science the two because on the screen, a man was approaching.

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Once the man was close enough to visualize, Sherlock lifted his head (resisted the painful ringing in his left ear) and deduced the man on the rest of his walk up to Sherlock. 

Six foot four inches, roughly ninety kilograms, broad back and broad chested with excellent posture and muscle development that displayed coordination and strength, and a head full of thick, auburn hair cut and slicked in a modern fashion. Not ex-military but part of a different social structure. The three piece, tweed herringbone suit with subtle and pleasing additions of teal in the tweed, leather cap toe Balmoral shoes, and the exclusive Eight & Bob Original Eau de Parfum suggested boarding school. Sherlock estimated his age to be twenty five or twenty six. An organized man in the peak physical prime of his life. 

The man stopped next to Sherlock and they regarded each other with pending aggression mirrored in their eyes. Slowly, the man opened a plastic bottle of water in front of Sherlock and took a polite sip. Ever a slave to science, Sherlock's Pavlovian response kicked in and the dehydrated salivary glands flexed painfully in Sherlock's mouth. 

Again, the man sipped the water and waited. A minute passed and finally Sherlock could no longer resist, he licked his lips and attempted to swallow the thirsty dryness in his throat. 

"Ah," the man finally spoke. "Pardon me my manners. You must be parched." In a flash, the man's hand grabbed a handful of hair on the back of Sherlock's head. He jerked Sherlock's head back and shoved the water bottle in Sherlock's mouth. Sherlock choked and sputtered as the man squeezed the plastic bottle and just under a liter of water was forced into Sherlock's mouth. 

Throwing Sherlock's head forward, the man stepped back. He pulled out a silk handkerchief and delicately dried his hands while Sherlock heaved and coughed. 

"You may call me, Mr. Foxvale," the man stated with authority. "Do not bother attempting to make your incorrect deductions; it is a randomly selected name. And even so, I will tell you why you are here. You are responsible for putting my group into considerable financial instability, and so you will be paying for the lost capital and our colleague's lost freedom." 

"Well, as I have nothing in my pockets and my jacket has been removed, is it true to guess you know I have a twenty pound note in my wallet." Sherlock said, then inclined his head to the so named Mr. Foxvale. " You are welcome to it, I'm sure your colleague's lost freedom is worth less, but I'll get change from you later."

Mr. Foxvale's hand flew to his pocket, grabbed a leather Billy Club and drew it resolutely across Sherlock's mouth. The weapon was a fourteen inches long wooden club wrapped in hardened leather. Blood instantly began running down Sherlock's jaw from his split lip. 

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Molly made a gasping sound she covered her mouth when she saw Mr. Foxvale strike Sherlock. 

"Christ, Sherlock!" John hissed through his teeth.

Mycroft, however gestured Molly and John to the seats in front of his desk as he took his own behind it. Mycroft propped the phone up on his desk and calmly picked up his phone and pushed one button. 

"I will need full tracking and recording capabilities on a phone in my office, you may take it with you," here John and Molly began to protest, but Mycroft once again put his hand up for silence. "You may take it with you but bring the equipment to have a live feed of video in my office."

"Who the hell are these people!?" John shouted at Mycroft. "Where the hell is Sherlock!?"

"Why was the video sent to me!?" Molly demanded.

Mycroft closed his eyes in exasperation, took a deep breath and regarded Molly and John. "Most certainly it is the group 'Brouillard.' That is Charles Augustus Magnussen's son, Johnathan Ramsey Magnussen. They seems to be in an airplane hangar or a large bunker; probability suggests airplane hangar." Mycroft sighed and looked at Molly, and she detected a note of sadness in his eyes.

"And Dr. Hooper, you were sent this feed because Sherlock loves you."


	3. Chapter 3

John slowly turned his head and regarded Molly. Her mouth was agape and her eyes were as big as saucer plates. "Me?!" Molly said agog. "You're crazy!"" looking quickly to John she said, "You're the one Sherlock loves, if he could ever get to that state of emotion." 

"I'm not gay!" John shouted to the ceiling. 

"That's not what I meant, John," Molly attempting to calm the situation. "You and Sherlock are best friends. I'm nothing to him but access to the lab and a resource for his investigations into 'Ordinary People.'" 

"Doctor Hooper," Mycroft said. "There are few people Sherlock cares for. Moriarty discovered three of those people. But he missed one, and blindly underestimated you and how Sherlock regards you."

Before anyone could continue, Mycroft's door opened and four men came in carrying large equipment boxes. 

"Your phone, Mr. Holmes," one of the men said gruffly and stuck out his hand. Mycroft looked across his desk to Molly then inclined his head to her phone. 

Picking up on the direction, the man turned and said to Molly and did the same, "Miss, your phone." Molly looked to her screen, Sherlock's head was down and the man still stood before him. She snatched it off the desk and handed over her phone. They waited in silence exchanging glares while the technicians set up the equipment necessary. The men set up a fifty inch TV on the bar table by the window and had the feed running in four and a half minutes. 

"Mr. Holmes, you will be notified shortly whether or not we can trace the feed," and the door shut with a quiet click when the men exited the room. "Look," John started. "No offense Molly, but can we table the topic of whether Sherlock has feelings. Anything we discover there won't get us any closer to finding Sherlock." 

"Ye...Yes," Molly faltered and looked to the screen. "John is right. We have to find out where he is." Unfortunately, the screen had perfect resolution and provided a frightening crystal clear picture.

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The blood that filled Sherlock's mouth made the bile churn in his stomach. Sherlock spit, just missing Mr. Foxvale's designer shoes and splattering the concrete floor with saliva and blood. 

"Unacceptable," Mr. Foxvale reproachfully, but calmly. Then without warning, he drove his shoe into Sherlocks's abdomen. Sherlock collapsed forward and unable to brace himself, hit his head on the concrete and rolled onto his side. Thankfully, Sherlock was able to catch his breath before he vomited. 

Mr. Foxvale tisked and turned with an annoyed look on his face, "She said this would happen. I can't stand the smell of vomit..." and he walked out of view. He returned shortly with a hose in one hand and medical shears in his other. Mr. Foxvale set the hose down a few feet from Sherlock and approached him with the shears. 

"I must say Mr Holmes," pulling Sherlock back into a kneeling position. "You have excellent taste in clothing and I hate to ruin a good tuxedo." In a few swift movements, he had cut off the black single breasted suit vest. Sherlock did not respond, just glared straight ahead. Next, he tore the pressed white shirt from the cummerbund and ripped the buttons free. The shirt too was roughly cut and the cummerbund fell as the last piece of soiled clothing was removed. 

Careful not to touch parts of sick on the clothing, Mr. Foxvale picked up the pile and walked out of the screen. An angry bruise was already forming on Sherlock's abdomen. As Sherlock looked down at his torso, he saw an IV line had been placed below his right clavicle. A central line accessing his subclavian vein--the closest access to the heart. Sherlock spit again, trying to rid his mouth of acid, caviar, champaign, and blood. 

Sherlock looked up when Mr. Foxvale's footsteps approached and picked up the hose, took four steps back and blasted Sherlock with water. The frigid water seized Sherlock's body as he tried to shield the wounds on his face and head from the pressure of the water. He endured the hose until Mr. Foxvale was sure the vomit was drained off and away from Sherlock. For ten minutes he sprayed Sherlock and the ground, and made a gagging noise when at last he turned off the spray. 

Sherlock's hair was soaked and dripped streams of icicles down his body. He was trembling with cold and he could not keep the quaking from his breath. The cold water and subsequent peripheral vasoconstriction did however, slow the bleeding to a small trickle.

"Now, let's have some fun," Mr. Foxvale said as he stepped closer to Sherlock to inspect that the bandage over the subclavian line had held up. "As I have discovered, you enjoy the effects heroin have one your body and mind. But rather than dull your pain with an opioid, let's get creative." He reached into his breast pocket and withdrew a loaded syringe of clear liquid. 

To Sherlock's surprise, that syringe above all else, frightened him the most.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This story is under the summation that Mary and John were never pregnant. 
> 
> Tables are turning on the rating now and it will get violent and vile, i.e. mentions of rape. If you are not interested in reading that kind of content, turn around, look for a "Domestic Fluff" fic and continue with your day!

"This," Mr. Foxvale inclining to the syringe in his hand, "is a rather impressive conception you will not have tried yet." 

"F-fuck off," Sherlock's chattering jaw betrayed him and jerked his shoulder away when Foxvale reached for the line access into Sherlock's body. Foxvale darted his arm out, seized Sherlock's throat and held him motionless with the power in his hand. 

Squeezing tighter as Sherlock began to struggle, Foxvale growled menacingly close to Sherlock's face. "This will be hell, do you understand me? This mixture was made especially for you and your payment." Sherlock's pulse was becoming rapid under the bruising pressure of Foxvale's fingers. His trachea pitched and spasmed with every small huff of air that escaped Sherlock's mouth. "Each compound that was contributed to this mixture will shatter you!" Foxvale yelled in Sherlock's face and threw him to the ground. 

Panting and coughing, Sherlock was unable to pull away when Foxvale knelt and began injecting the contents of the syringe. Foxvale walked toward the camera and leaned in with sneering eyes. "LSD and cocaine primarily," he whispered to the camera, "and a few other guarded ingredients designed to keep him conscious. Let's say we take a fifteen minute break while the cocktail takes hold." He exited the frame leaving the image of Sherlock lying partially on his back, a panicked look on his face as his eyes saw Foxvale talk to what he saw now was a camera: a red dot he mistook to be one of the sight lasers. The other glowing red dots shone on Sherlock's chest as he slowly caught his breath. 

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Mycroft's phone rang and he, John, and Molly jumped as if it were gunfire. Before Mycroft answered, he gave out an irritated grunt. "Have you found the location of my brother, yet?" and he added the 'yet' with the punctuated practice of someone who was not accustomed to waiting. 

While the person on the other end of the line began a rapid fire explanation as to why there would be difficulties, Molly leaned forward with her elbows on her knees and held her head in her hands. John reached out and placed a hand on Molly's back, she let out a broken sob at his touch. 

John moved his chair closer to Molly and protectively drew her to his chest. "He'll be okay, he'll be okay," John whispered to Molly, but his voice cracked when he said, "Sherlo-ck is strong." 

Mycroft hung up the phone and rubbed his forehead in frustration. He sighed and looked up at Molly and John, "Dr. Hooper, Dr. Watson. We are told the software that hijacked Dr. Hooper's phone is complex and will take time to access, but I am assured our technicians will be successful. I believe Johnathan Ramsey Magnussen to be as dangerous as his father, though far more reckless and unpredictable. He likely has connections to this group, Brouilard, and was happy to take on the role of punisher. "

"Mycroft," John said seriously, meeting Mycroft's eyes. "Does he know? Does he know Sherlock killed Charles Magnussen?" Molly abruptly pulled away from John's arms.

"What!?" Molly asked in disbelief. 

"He does remain ignorant," Mycroft's controlled voice spoke, "like the rest of the public," waving his arm toward Molly, "of Magnussen's true murderer."

Molly looked back and forth from John to Mycroft, waiting impatiently for an explanation. "I don't believe this," Molly said and looked at John when Mycroft finished outlining what really happened during the Magnussen case, delicately leaving out Mary's involvement. But before she could continue, Sherlock gave out a low moan and the topic quickly changed. "Mycroft, what was that Foxvale gave Sherlock, have you heard of it, will he..." 

"It is clearly intended to torment Sherlock's mind and heighten his sensation for the abuse he is about to sustain. I doubt they would just have him killed outright if they went to the trouble of a abduction." Mycroft said stoically, but he was unable to hide the shadow of fear in his voice. 

"Dr. Molly Hooper," Foxvale said on screen and they all turned their attention. Sherlock held his breath and glared darkly at the man approaching him. "Now she is a pretty flower."

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"A soft, easterly breeze has informed our cause of Moriarty's small oversight, and I must say we are delighted to finish his game," Foxvale taunted. Sherlock's mind had begun to race and his vision burned under the harsh light. The last fifteen minutes Sherlock had spent in his mind palace, trying feebly to defend against the chemicals that began to trespass on his consciousness. 

Within his mind palace, Sherlock had only just made it to Mycroft's door when he felt the first effects. Mycroft was sitting behind his desk when Sherlock burst in to his office. "Mycroft, help!" Sherlock beseeched his brother. "You have to find her! Molly, you have to protect her!" But as he said this, the walls of Mycroft's office began to alight with a fire consuming the walls in slow motion. 

"Sentiment, brother mine. What have I told you about sentiment?" Mycroft said with a patronizing tone. "I thought you outgrew your childish emotional response." 

Sherlock fell to his knees in front of Mycroft's desk, "I'm sorry, Mycroft," Sherlock said weakly. "I tried." The floor beneath him began to quake and collapse. Sherlock looked up at Mycroft and saw him and the rest of the room burning. 

"No!" Sherlock yelled, though rather than the frightened shout he called out to Mycroft in his mind palace, it came out as an enfeebled echo in the empty hangar. A simple wooden chair was set loudly on the floor next to Sherlock's head and amplified the chaos it caused inside Sherlock's mind palace and drifting awareness. 

"Sit down, Mr. Holmes. I'm tired of picking you up off the ground," Foxvale commanded. Sherlock's knees shook and his balance nearly faltered when finally, he was able to stand himself upright. He could feel sweat begin to bead on his skin as his heart beat in earnest to compensate for sudden demand of cardiac output required by his body after being horizontal for so long. Dehydration and the influence of a stimulant he figured must have been in the syringe, made his breathing dry and erratic. 

Foxvale roughly shoved Sherlock onto the chair and the force of it threw his head back exposing the bruises Foxvale's fingers had left on Sherlock's neck. His muscles were becoming lethargic and weak, drained of power by a muscle relaxer that had no doubt been added to the syringe. Sherlock rolled his head forward and tried to focus. 

Foxvale stood in front of Sherlock an laughed while Sherlock struggled with his mind and body. His laugh pulsed through the vast room and Sherlock fought back the serpentine ribbons he saw as sound waves coming from Foxvale himself. "Hallucinating, hallucinogenic," Sherlock thought and closed his eyes. "That was not real," he continued to himself. "Get out of my head!"

A blow to the left side of Sherlock's face seized him from his reasoning. The club's impact tore open the skin on Sherlock's cheek and caused the ringing in his ears to carry the waves of pain throughout his body.

"Excellent," Foxvale whispered and he watched with perverse satisfaction as the blood ran down the stubble of Sherlock's jaw and mixed with the sweat now glistening on his neck and chest. 

"That Molly Hooper, I can not wait to get my hands on her," Foxvale said with fake sensuality. "You, though will never feel how arousing it will be to hold her sexy little body against your own. And I will have to hold her," he taunted, "she will come willingly to me at first, but she will not be so willing in the end. That though, is the best part." Foxvale winked knowingly at Sherlock and drove his fist into the side of Sherlock's chest. 

Disgusted with the image Foxvale was painting and the heightened pain of two cracked ribs, Sherlock dry heaved and gasped for breath against the pain. Fires of rage expanded inside of him fueled by the drugs surging in his veins, and despite the muscles burning in his arms, he strained forward in the chair, "Touch Molly Hooper and I will rip your minuscule testicles from your body and feed them to you in front of her!"

"A colorful and creative gesture, but your brain and body will be useless when it comes to her defense and her...needs," and Foxvale grabbed his crotch in a primitive, uncivilized display of masculine prowess and aggression. He leaned in close to Sherlock and saw his eyes had become glazed, and whispered loud enough for the microphone to pick up his vile words. "I will tear the clothes from her beaten body and tie her up with them. I'm going to make her call me 'Sherlock' every time I drive into her cunt." 

Sherlock revolted at the testosterone that throbbed through his groin when Foxvale forced the violent and erotic scene into his mind. He shut his eyes against the image, but the stimulant and hallucinogen conspired to harden Sherlock's unwanted arousal and flashed scenes of himself lecherously dominating Molly while he laughed with Foxvale's voice.

Drawing on his experience with stimulants, Sherlock channeled the primal surge of hormones and adrenalin to the strength of his neck and shoulders and drove his brow into Foxvale's face, breaking his nose.


	5. Chapter 5

Sherlock watched the blood drip from Foxvale's face and when a drop left his chin it sprung butterfly wings and flew toward the camera. More and more butterflies swarmed the recording device until all he could see were the frantic wings, beating with brighter and brighter colors. As the colors blurred and shone, Molly stepped out from the cloud of color.

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Mycroft, John, and Molly sat stunned watching the feed, surprised at the blow Sherlock was able to land on Foxvale. They watched Sherlock's head loll as his vision went from Foxvale's bleeding face to looking directly at the camera. 

Molly let out a hushed gasp when his glazed eyes stared directly at the three of them through the screen in Mycroft's office. Sherlock's eyes were confused and furrowed, visualizing objects unseen to anyone but himself. Dried blood was spattered over his face and chest like savage war paint. 

"Molly," Sherlock spoke in choked and rasping whisper. He stood slowly from the chair, but just as Sherlock took a small step toward the camera, Foxvale's back hand hit him on the side of the face with a smack, wet from Foxvale's own fresh blood. Sherlock stumbled but kept his feet under him. 

"But that's right, Mr. Holmes," Foxvale sneered as he approached Sherlock and grabbed the front of his black suit pants. Bending double, Sherlock let out a distressed shout at the crushing pain in his unwillingly aroused genitalia. "Molly Hooper has moved on from you," Foxvale said disdainfully. "Your nastiness toward her made her finally realize what a waste of space you are!" Foxvale yelled in Sherlock's ear. "But you didn't fool The East Wind," he continued with malice. "Your insults and japes at Molly Hooper protected her from Moriarty, but She saw through your childish defense, plain as day." Foxvale strangled Sherlock's crotch and repeatedly drove his other fist into Sherlock's bent torso.

Foxvale's aggressive grunts echoed in the room with each blow, followed immediately by the fleshy impact of fist on muscle and last, Sherlock's distressed groan with the dull thud of impact. Sherlock's arms remained bound behind his back, unable to defend against Foxvale's assault.

"Damnit!" John yelled and stood after the first blow to Sherlock's hunched body, and when Foxvale's punch hit Sherlock a second time, John turned, picked up the chair he had been sitting on and threw it into the middle of the large office with a yell of furry and frustration. The chair shattered upon impact, the pieces lay worthless upon the great Persian rug. 

Mycroft dropped his vision to his desk and gasped silently when he heard Foxvale say 'The East Wind.' He raised a hand to support his head away from the vision of his defenseless brother being beaten, though he could still hear Sherlock's stifled cries. 

Molly, however never took her eyes from him, feeling that if she looked away, Sherlock's strength would fail him faster. For he had called to her. 'Molly,' he had said pleadingly, and she would not deny him her comfort and strength. She winced each time Sherlock was struck and her body clenched around the excited, primal parts of her sex that had flared when she first saw his bare chest ruthlessly exposed. A primordial desire wanted to see Sherlock survive the next blow and the next blow, so that she could claim him as her mate and evolve the species. The lust was indecent, but Molly felt it burn and ache when Mycroft's convinced words rang in her ear, "Sherlock loves you." 

Foxvale's fist stopped and he stood over Sherlock, panting and catching his breath from the effort of the assault. Perspiration beaded on his brow and he removed the tweed jacket. The well tailored matching vest fit him smartly and the tight fit, stark white dress shirt bragged of the trained muscle underneath. 

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When Sherlock raised his head, he saw Foxvale putting on stiff leather gloves. His trachea was dry from heaving with each attack and he coughed as it spasmed. Pain shot through the left side of his chest where each rib had fractured, and fresh blood was coming up from his bruised lungs. Sherlock fell to his knees when the effort of supporting his battered, hypoxic body became too much for his wounded strength to handle. He panted and his heart drummed rapidly as his body tried to compensate for incapacitated parts of his lungs. A distant voice, Molly's voice sang from far away, an incoherent song about the east wind.

Sherlock's head buzzed with the influence of the drugs racing through his veins and he closed his eyes and swayed to the soft melody he was now humming aloud. One last feeble sliver of sanity attempted to ground Sherlock back into reality, but the eery and foreboding melody consumed him. Slipping away from consciousness, Sherlock fell sideways onto the floor with the last sway of "Under we go..." 

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	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is the reason for the ratings and the added warning and tags. So, if that is not your thing, stop here and imagine a happily ever after ending.

Mycroft, John, and Molly were speechless while Foxvale stood over Sherlock's crumbled from. He used his shoe to roll Sherlock onto his back and Sherlock's listless body lay on top of his hands and arms, bending his spine so that his torso arched toward the ceiling. Sweat shone across his damaged body and they watched each shallow breath that Sherlock took. 

"Pathetic," Foxvale said repulsively and turned and addressed the camera. "But my, my, Miss Hooper. You have quite the effect on Sherlock's desire." Foxvale lifted his foot and put his shoe on Sherlock's groin. Leaning a hand on his knee, Foxvale pressed and Sherlock groaned in protest at the molestation. "I hope you are enjoying yourself as much as Sherlock seems to be," he grinned. 

For countless seconds, they watched Sherlock squirm under Foxvale's weight when a phone call struck the science of their torment. Mycroft answered before a second shrill ring could abuse their anxiety, and John walked over to Molly and placed his arm around her shaking shoulder. Looking at the screen together, neither saw the first tears fall on each of their faces. 

"Thank you for the update," Mycroft said stoically. "Have the ambulance ready. The moment you discover the location, we will leave immediately," Mycroft returned the phone to its receiver and looked at John holding Molly while they shed silent tears for his brother. An immense wave of gratitude washed over him and startled Mycroft's mind. He was unprepared and baffled when he realized he felt sentiment for John and Molly's love for Sherlock. 

"I am told it will not be much longer: our software has breached the device's defense and is close to locating the origin of the signal," Mycroft said. Molly put her arm around John's waist. 

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Sherlock's breathing began to falter and huff painfully as his unhinged consciousness retuned. His breathing was heavy and labored but he could not slow down: the urgent need for more oxygen took precedence over the protesting pain in his chest and Sherlock endured each anguished breath. 

Turning his head sluggishly toward the camera Sherlock slurred, "Can you hear...me?" 

Molly gasped and John took a step back. "Do you think he knows we are watching him!?" John said.

"Shh!" Molly interrupted John's exclamation. 

"Molly, it's burning," Sherlock let out a strangled sob when he saw her image flash in front of his eyes. He watched Foxvale circling him, but saw Molly's distorted image instead sneering at him with a predictive stride. The disoriented vision of Molly spoke distant and disdainful words that Sherlock could not make out. Though she stood over him, Sherlock watched the ripple of her voice traveling over a fallow field and come up behind her to move her lips. 

"He said he would do it, and I've been waiting," Sherlock's whimpered up to her. "My heart," and Sherlock's voice broke, "Moriarty...he found you, somehow he found you in me." A tear rolled over the bridge of Sherlock's nose and fell to the concrete. The temperature was dropping and each hitching breath Sherlock managed drifted away from him in a swirling fog.

"I failed...I can't protect you," Sherlock whispered, "You must go to Mycroft," he said with more clarity however, the extra volume cost him and the dry blood in his throat caused Sherlock to cough. His extended back buckled and the muscles of his chest seized with each spasm. Sherlock rolled onto his side and panted through his clenched his jaw. 

When Sherlock regained control he opened his red and swollen eyes, though he wished he had not. Before him he saw Moriarty standing in the overgrown field he had seen behind Molly, but Molly was gone. Unable to help himself, Sherlock grinned when he believed the hallucination of Molly was safely on her way to Mycroft. But the flash of joy disappeared in the smoke that was coming from Moriarty himself. 

Sherlock's panicked eyes stared into the source of the light behind the camera, washing out the fair colors in his irises. Moriarty started toward Sherlock and a torch appeared in his hand that painted flames on his evil face. 

Hysteria seize Sherlock's heart and compelled him to his feet and attempt escape. Sherlock stumbled as the muscles in his legs failed to stabilized his upright form. His weakened body was unable to support his frantic falterings and Sherlock fell sideways on his shoulder. The crunching sound of Sherlock's breaking clavicle was heard for a split second before it was drowned in the din of his cry. 

Sherlock opened his eyes when he heard Foxvale's laugh. As he approached, Moriarty morphed into the reality of Foxvale now standing above him. 

"I've told you that I grow tired of lifting you off the floor," Foxvale said and he reached down with fingerless leather gloves, one hand gripping tightly to the fistful of hair he seized on Sherlock's head, the other the waistband of his pants. Foxvale drug Sherlock's body to the chair and forcefully sat him down. 

Gasps punctuated and interrupted Sherlock's tachypnea while he struggled to keep his eyes open and reality before him. Blackness slithered along the edges of his vision making it difficult to ignore the dehydration stifling his blood pressure. 

"I think a piggy back dose with a little more stimulant and a dash of your old favorite will be required to maintain consciousness," Foxvale taunted and traced a new syringe across Sherlock's jaw and over his lips. 

With strength drawn from his sympathetic nervous system, Sherlock pleaded, "No!....No!" But before Sherlock could flinch away, Foxvale gripped Sherlock's injured shoulder, fisted the syringe and struck Sherlock's face. Sherlock would have fallen sideways off the chair if it were not for Foxvale's hand on his shoulder, and the strength of Foxvale's arm righted him for another blow. The second impact made contact with Sherlock's ocular bone, the trauma temporarily blinding him with pain and the first rush of inflammation.

Foxvale grabbed the line into Sherlock's body and Sherlock had no awareness to pull back. Within seconds he felt the stirringly electricity of the cocaine and the never-ending desired release of heroin. 

Anger and the chemical energy gave Sherlock focus and he glared into Foxvale's face when the plunger of the syringe emptied the last of the drug into his body. Sherlock's skin prickled with forced awareness that punctuated the injuries on his body and repulsively stimulated his molested libidinous arousal. 

Sherlock saw his vision waver and Molly's returned to him. Sherlock looked beside Foxvale to Molly's image, "No! Molly, you have to go!" Sherlock yelled urgently. Foxvale turned his head to the empty space beside him and sneered with understanding. 

"Molly, darling," Foxvale said sweetly to the void next to him. "Why don't you give Sherlock one last kiss before I kill you in front of him?" 

Crazed visions of Molly's battered and mutilated corpse appeared before him, and dozens of bodies with Molly's dead visage surrounded him. Sherlock gasped in in despair, "No! No!!" He screamed hysterically and only stopped when Foxvale drove his fist into Sherlock's abdomen. 

Sherlock's mouth opened and closed silently, his paralyzed diaphragm useless to pull in the breath that was taken from him. Foxvale swung his leg over Sherlock's lap and heavily sat on his groin and when Sherlock was finally able to gasp precious air into his lungs, Foxvale grabbed Sherlock's head in both hands and violently covered Sherlock's mouth with his own, licking and sucking the air back out of Sherlock's strained lungs.

Foxvale moved a hand to the back of Sherlock's head, forcing his face forward, the other he moved to smother Sherlock's nose. When Sherlock managed to free his mouth from Foxvale's mauling, he painfully filled his broken chest with a rush of air. Opening his eyes, he saw in front of him a terror of Molly's distorted face. She appeared as though evil itself destroyed her soul and was using the shell of her innocent body. 

Foxvale laughed at the horror in Sherlock's face and began to move his pelvis above him. Almost immediately Foxvale felt Sherlock respond. 

"No, stop! Stop!" Sherlock begged while he tried to keep his hips from moving against the salacious friction in his lap. Sherlock closed his eyes tightly and looked away from the source of his agony, grimacing when his frenzied nerves and traitorous impulse burned for release. 

"Huh! Huh!" Sherlock panted each time Foxvale threw his weight against him. Foxvale slapped Sherlock hard across the face causing the gash on his cheek to break the congealing blood covering the wound and fresh hot blood ran down Sherlock's clammy skin. 

Looking into Molly's insane and lecherous face Sherlock said, "Molly...huh!...Stop, please...huh!" Her face flashed in flames and Foxvale's sadistic face, flushed with madness was now looking into Sherlock's confused eyes. Foxvale grabbed Sherlock's face in his arms and sealed his hands over his mouth and nose inhumanely. Slowing his hips, Foxvale thrust onto Sherlock with a painful hammering. 

Sherlock's weak attempts to fight his airway free from Foxvale's grip were in vain. The twisted lust Sherlock felt left him when he became aware of the reality of the man on top of him, but his nervous system had been hijacked and Sherlock's body betrayed him when Foxvale quickened his pace. He knew Sherlock was close to climax and he squeezed his forearms tighter around Sherlock's throat and carotid arteries. 

The manipulated blood flow in Sherlock's body caused him to convulse in release and lose consciousness almost simultaneously. 

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	7. Chapter 7

Mycroft, John, and Molly watched in horror when Sherlock's body shook with his climax then go inert in Foxvale's arms. Releasing Sherlock's throat, Foxvale held Sherlock's face firmly by the bruised jaw and moved his lips and tongue over Sherlock's slack mouth. When is heart could finally generate enough output to oxygenate his brain, Sherlock moaned in hypotensive protest, quelling John, Mycroft, and Molly's fear that Sherlock's heart had stopped beating.

"You sick son of a bitch!" John screamed. The outburst caused Molly to release the breath she had been holding with Sherlock and she reached back for her chair and fell into it while her tunneling vision returned. Mycroft left his chair and covered his gag with a hand over his mouth; he barley made it to his private bathroom in time to hit the sink. 

John and Molly heard the faucet run for thirty seconds before Mycroft re-entered the room. Foxvale stood up from Sherlock's limp body and spiritedly slapped Sherlock's face with false disapproval. "Tisk, risk, Mr. Holmes," Foxvale said as he picked up the hose once more. Dabbing is own perspiring brow, Foxvale aimed the hose at Sherlock. His body was drenched in sweat and his pants clung to the side of his leg with a sickening shine. "Father made you out to be tougher than you are," and with that arrogant quip he sprayed Sherlock's unmoving body. 

Sherlock's senseless head hung over his chest and the blood stained water ran from Sherlock's hair and neck like streams of fiery pearls. The water pooled in his lap and soaked his suit pants; it cold and soothed his raging, heated, and tender flesh.

After the third minute of constant spraying, Mycroft's desk phone rang. Unconcerned for any presence of civilized behavior, he grasped for the phone, "Where!? Tell me where, damnit!" and Mycroft paused to hear the location. "An abandon airport hangar twenty minutes away. Let's go," Mycroft said flatly with an edge of revenge in his hard voice. 

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Inside the speeding ambulance, Molly, John, Mycroft and two first responders sat nervously across from each other and watched the live feed that was streaming on a monitor hung above the driver seat. Foxvale had put down the hose and opened a fresh bottle of water. His thirsty gulps were interrupted by a low growl, "Father..." Sherlock's voice rumbled. "Charles...Agustus Magnesun..." Sherlock spoke in a delirious and maniacal growl, keeping his head lowered as he shared his deduction. 

"Sherlock...no...don't tell him" whispered Mycroft, but Sherlock's lunatic voice continued.

"He was an evil man an my pleasure kill," Sherlock lifted his head as he spoke, wanting to catch Foxvale's reaction. 

Mycroft groaned and Foxvale dropped the bottle of water he was holding. He took three strides and snatched Sherlock's head up, exposing the bruised flesh of Sherlock's pitching throat. Sherlock and Foxvale were inches apart and Sherlock turned deliriously toward Foxvale, his body invigorated by the frigid water. "Appledore is a lovely place," Sherlock taunted. "Did he show you to his mind palace before I put a bullet in his brain and destroyed him?" Sherlock allowed his voice to canter like a nursery rhyme when he said "mind palace," implying it was weak and Magnesun's intellect too dull to achieve a real mind palace.

Foxvale furiously screamed in Sherlock's face before he drove his fist into the side of Sherlock's temple. The blackness took Sherlock after the first blow, but Foxvale held his grip in Sherlock's hair and his head swung dully like a hanging punching bag when Foxvale's fist made impact a second time. 

Disgusted with the rag-doll way Sherlock's neck wobbled in his hand, Foxvale released Sherlock's hair and his head fell sideways with no effort to support itself. Foxvale turned and faced the camera, "Well, Mycroft Holmes and Dr. John Watson will have joined you by now, Miss Hooper." His voice was cold as ice. "You can tell Mycroft, The East Wind told me Sherlock has an interesting fact he would share to fuel my actions." Foxvale removed his heavy belt and wound it around his fist. "I am going to slowly drain the blood from his body and burn the rotten shell of his corpse!" Foxvale screeched with a schizophrenic insanity. 

Foxvale turned quickly and whipped the buckle across Sherlock's chest. Instantly, a welt developed where the buckle struck and blood ran from the deep laceration the metal cut along its path. Sherlock woke to a violent stinging that wrapped itself across his chest. It seemed to slither around him and tear another burning path each time Foxvale rose his hand and rent Sherlock's body. 

Their cries clashed in the hallow of the hangar: Foxvale's grunts of anger and maximum effort reverberated under the sharp exasperation that escaped Sherlock each time the belt buckle drew murderous slashes into his hypersensitive skin. 

Sherlock's reaction to shield his face away from a stray swing was delayed by a blinding rage that was beginning to boil over, fueled by the stimulating effect the mixture of drugs had on his system. The sharp edge of the buckle shred into Sherlock's forehead, raked through his brow and down his face. 

"John," Molly said breaking the trance. "We will be there any minute, when Mycroft's men secure the building..." but she stopped speaking when John pulled a hand gun from the back of his jeans. "When the area is secure," she continued, "we have to have a plan for Sherlock," Molly said to John and the paramedics.

"Yes," John said resolutely and holstered his hand gun back in his jeans. He flipped on his military training, "You," John pointed to the medic closest to Mycroft, "I want RSI drugs ready and dosed for IM."* John pointed to the second medic, "You," the command in John's voice grew stronger as his combat training took over. "I want you ready to hold Sherlock down and pre-oxygenate as best you can. Whatever he is seeing when we approach him, he will likely fight if he cannot recognize Molly or myself."

Molly was aware of the benefit of chemical dissociation ketamine will cause in Sherlock's nervous system: the functioning centers of his visual, auditory, and other sensory mechanisms would rapidly lose their ability to perceive stimulus, and his body will become passive and inanimate.

Drapes of blood shrouded Sherlock's torso like velvet curtains being drawn at the end of a stage production. Sherlock looked down and began hyperventilating when he saw his blood running from his face and body. Its metallic taste and odor caused Sherlock's heart to beat wildly in protest as blood continued to pour out of him. 

When Foxvale stopped to catch is breath, the ambulance slowed to a stop on a gravel road. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *"RSI" stand for "Rapid Sequence Intubation," meaning placement for an endotracheal tube is necessary to prevent impending respiratory or cardiac failure. A paralytic and rapid sedative are included in this category of drugs. 
> 
> *"IM" stand for "Intramuscular" administration. Once given, IM ketamine can become effective within 2 minutes or sooner depending on the cardiac rate and function.


	8. Chapter 8

Dressed all in black, Mycroft's men scattered and moved like ripples on a midnight pond to surround the hangar's exits. Addressing the last soldier as he strode by the ambulance Mycroft said, "If Magnesun shows any sign of resistance, end him." The man quickly radioed the message to his team.

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Sherlock was trembling though he felt he was burning from the inside out. His rapid heart beat pounded in his ears as he watched the streams of blood rush out of his body and turn into snakes that moved with demonic speed, twisting and squeezing around him. 

Magnesun watched the panic rise on Sherlock's face and laughed when Sherlock struggled in vain to escape his hallucination, his injured movements inconsequential to the serpent that was wrapping itself around Sherlock's neck. The body of the snake turned into Magnesun's arm and instead of feeling the smooth scales of the snake's body, Sherlock felt Magnesun's cold fingers clench around his throat with homicidal purpose.

Distracted by his perverted mirth, Magnesun was unaware that the sight lasers were slowly disappearing from Sherlock's chest and reappearing on his own. 

"Release Sherlock Holmes, now!" Mycroft's magnified voice disturbed the deadly silence in the hangar. Sherlock looked up and stared straight into the deranged face of his brother, and felt Mycroft's hand clench even tighter. Mycroft's insane eyes blazed and possessed Sherlock vision, forcing Sherlock to maintain eye contact.

A loud blast thundered through Sherlock's brain and a bullet went into the front of Mycroft's head. The pressure on Sherlock's throat was immediately gone but he remained unable to breathe, his dying body begging in shudders and small gasps for oxygen. As Mycroft's body fell and hit the ground, Magnesun's dead stare appeared in Mycroft's eye sockets. 

"N-no..." Sherlock managed. Around the revolting pool of blood and brain, Molly's corpses reappeared with Magnesun's dead eyes all fixed on him. "NO! NO! Molly!" Sherlock screamed as he looked at each one of Molly's lifeless bodies. 

Sherlock staggered up from the chair in disbelief and the massive hangar doors started to open with a rumble he felt in his bones. Black figures without faces were charging him from out of the darkness. 

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"Sherlock!" John yelled when he saw the flight in Sherlock's eyes. "Stay where you are!"

Sherlock heard John's voice coming from all around him, heavy and distant as though distorted through water. "No," Sherlock sobbed, "Stay away from me!" Panic overtook him when the approaching figures assumed the faces of John, Mycroft, and Molly. 

"No!" Sherlock screamed. He no longer trusted his sight: he knew the faces were corrupt, dead and necrotic. Sherlock was able to sprint twenty feet before forceful hands tackled him to the ground.

"Be careful!" Molly shouted at the medic who landed on Sherlock, causing him to grunt with pain and fear. The separated bones in his chest ground against one another and tore into the delicate tissue of his lungs as Sherlock's body was forcibly held to the ground. He flailed and kicked his feet in attempts to save himself from the nightmare of faces shifting on each demonic form. 

John sprinted to where Sherlock's head thrashed against his captors, his weak groans and screams were frantic and heartbreakingly wretched. "Give him the ketamine, now!" John instructed Molly as she came as close to Sherlock as she could without being struck in the pandemonium surrounding the combative man. Molly retrieved the vile and needle from the medical bag and drew up the drug into a large bore syringe while the medic beside John prepared the equipment required to ensure Sherlock's airway. 

Catching sight of the vile, Sherlock screamed in terror and redoubled his efforts. He managed to throw one of the men off him, but the action was costly. Behind his back, Sherlock felt the radius in his forearm snap and his shoulder separate from its joint. Adrenaline and artificial energy violated Sherlock's impulse to lose consciousness and insist he watch when Molly drove the needle into his shredded chest.

"No!" Sherlock whimpered when he saw Molly's true face, tears streaking her pale cheeks. She watched, stunned into paralysis as his battered body made one last attempt for escape. The onset of the drug began within twenty seconds and Sherlock lost control of his struggling body, reduced to clenching every muscle he possessed in defiance of the dominating chemical influence.

John tried to lower Sherlock's head while the medic freed Sherlock's arms from behind his back, but the convulsive tension in his neck would not yield. "Molly, the succinylcholine*, we are running out of time," John said urgently when he saw Sherlock's bleeding chest and blue lips. Sherlock's eyes began to vellicate and his vision blurred when John's face came before him, wether truly upside-down or not, Sherlock's shattered reality did not know. 

John forced a clear mask tight over Sherlock's sweaty and blood soaked face while the medic squeezed the bag that ventilated Sherlock's lungs. Molly watched as the paralytic overcame Sherlock's nervous system and his chest rose and fell only with assisted and artificial breaths. Tilting back Sherlock's head and neck in order visualize his vocal cords with the laryngoscope**, John passed the plastic tube into Sherlock's airway. 

"I can hear no air movement on the left side of his chest," the medic said urgently when he auscultated each assisted lung.

"The tube is not displaced," John checked the depth of the endotracheal tube. "That'll likely be a pneumothorax***," John said watching Sherlock's bloody chest expand unilaterally. "We need to get him on the monitor in the ambulance, I can try decompression." 

The dead weight of Sherlock's body disturbed John malevolently away from his focus as they placed Sherlock on the gurney and rushed to the ambulance. Coarse, grating, and angry memories of grieving for Sherlock's suicide held John's mind immobile and he was unaware of everyone staring at him over Sherlock's body as the ambulance sped away from the crime scene.

Molly understood immediately; the best training in he world could not prepare John to see his best friend dying before him. She reached over and placed a hand on John's knee and squeezed. "I got it from here, John," Molly said gently. 

"Why isn't he on the monitor, yet!?" Molly turned and barked at the medic attempting to place electrodes on the mess of Sherlock's skin and a blood pressure cuff on Sherlock's uninjured arm. 

Molly's triage skills came to her with a vengeance at having been ignored since residency. She retrieved an emergency air release needle and inserted it below Sherlock's fractured clavicle and into the pleural space of his chest. She held the catheter in Sherlock's chest and it hissed with release when Molly removed the needle. The machine ventilating Sherlock's lungs immediately reflected lower driving pressures. A rapid tracing of supra ventricular tachycardia**** glowed to life on the emergency monitor and beeped sharply with each of Sherlock's heartbeats. 

The ambulance came to a jarring halt in front of the emergency room, and in a whirl of emergency personnel Sherlock was rolled away through the automatic sliding glass door. Mycroft followed without opposition, leaving John and Molly standing speechless next to the flashing ambulance. Sherlock's blood stained their cloths and was cold on their hands. The electric door closed and as it sealed, John and Molly reached out a hand to the other. Sherlock's dried blood cracking on the surface of their skin as they squeezed each other's hand. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Succinylcholine-a fast acting paralytic
> 
> **Laryngoscope-a tool used to displace the tongue away from visualization of the oral pharynx and lift the epiglottis to expose the vocal cords and access to the trachea. 
> 
> ***Pneumothorax-happens when air is leaked into the area between the lung and chest wall, typically from a punctured lung. The increased pressure around the lung causes it to collapse and become ineffectual.
> 
> ****Supra Ventricular Tachycardia-a fast and irregular heart rhythm caused by many influences, one being drug use/abuse (cocaine, meth, etc.). If untreated, it can lead to cardiac arrest.


	9. Chapter 9

John and Molly sat in silence while they listened to the anesthesiologist give the operating room report to the receiving intensive care nurse outside in the hallway. 

"Alright, this is Holmes, Sherlock, thirty six year old male," the anesthesiologist said and when the nurse gave a quick "the detective?" interjection he added in a less professional tone, "Yeah, that guy. Got himself into trouble, bit off more than he could chew." John let out an aggravated growl, only Molly could hear. "VIP, his brother is high up in the government, so don't cross him. Right, multiple lacerations over his face and body, you probably have over a hundred sutures on his chest alone. Doc would like you to check the dressings in a few hours to make sure all the bleeding has stopped."

Molly looked at the hospital bed before her and the battered man in it. Half of Sherlock's face was covered in bandages and the other half was swollen and bruised. His chest was wrapped in white gauze and moved mechanically up and down as the ventilator delivered each breath. 

"Right clavicle and radius fracture: the clavicle they plated and cast the wrist. The right shoulder was also reduced* and placed in an immobilizer," he continued. Sherlock's arm was secured next to his body and elevated on a pillow with soft restraints donning his wrists. 

"Oh," the anesthesiologist punctuated, "don't let the propofol run out until you are absolutely ready to remove the breathing tube: this guy just about leaped off of the OR table when he came to--punched an orderly and nearly got the breathing tube out."

Molly leaned forward and irrationally chuckled into her hands. The stress and intensity of the night was playing tricks on her ability to maintain her demeanor. In no way was Sherlock's violated sanity and body a laughing matter, but his resilience and stubbornness was endearing to her. Yet, soon the echo of his terror when he was screaming her name shattered the little light Sherlock shone inside her and Molly's suppressed laughter soon turned into sobs. John put a comforting hand on her back and moved it in calming circles while the anesthesiologist continued. 

"He has bilateral rib fractures: right eighth and ninth, left--four through six and ten," the doctor said. "There must have been a pneumothorax on the left, but someone decompressed it adequately enough, no chest tube was required."

Under his breath the anesthesiologist said, "And listen to this, he came in with a central line! Level one labs were run and this guy was loaded! LSD, cocaine, heroin, and probably more, but it'll take time to get those results." 

John supported his elbow on the arm rest of the plastic chair on which he was sitting and rubbed his brow. 

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"Sir," the nurse said as she stood in front of Molly and John but got no response. "Sir, miss?" she repeated louder and they looked up, startled away from the night replaying in their minds. 

"My name is Caroline, I'll be Mr. Homes's nurse for the remainder of the night. May I ask how you're related to the patient?" she asked professionally. 

John stammered, knowing that only family were permitted in cases like this, he grasped for an answer that would allow he and Molly to stay. "Uh, we are...well, Sherlock is our..."

"They are family," Mycroft's curt voice interrupted. He walked in front of John and up to the side of Sherlock's bed. The bright fluorescent glow of the sterile lighting cast translucent shadows over Sherlock's prostrate body and drew attention to the sickening contrast of his pale skin and the dark bruises marring its beauty. 

"We will transfer Mr. Holmes to my estate as soon as the breathing tube is out. And that better be within the next hour," Mycroft commanded. 

"Sir, really," the nurse said objectively. "He has only just come out of surgery. The drugs may not fully be out of his system--" But she stopped her protest at the look Mycroft gave her. "Yes, sir," she said reluctantly. 

Turning to Molly and John, Mycroft said, "Dr. Hooper, Dr. Watson, I have made arrangements for you both to stay at my estate and oversee Sherlock's recovery. A car is waiting for each of you so you may retrieve necessities from your respective homes." 

Molly and John looked at Sherlock's comatose form, to the displeased nurse, and followed Mycroft out the door. 

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"Four of ativan was given in total to keep him down," the transport medic reported off to Molly and John as they moved Sherlock's limp body from the gurney. "He started thrashing just as we got into the transport ambulance. I'd leave those restrains on if I were you, doc said the hallucinogen he was given will take about another or so to clear his system." The medic backed away as he said this, looking at Sherlock as though he would strike at any moment. 

When the medics left, Molly and John were alone with Sherlock. The sun would rise in just an hour but it would go unnoticed and hidden behind the thick dark curtains. The tall ceilings and square footage of the room hid the corners in darkness while the glowing light of the monitor and a bedside lamp illuminated the bed Sherlock was now laying upon. The classical decorative wall paper and antique furniture gave the room a tone of upper class indignation that scorned the brash technology tarnishing the society of the room.

Sherlock groaned in weak agitation and pain when he pulled against the restraints around his wrists, grimacing with the effort. Molly moved over to Sherlock's uninjured shoulder and gently pressed him back on to the pillow. "John, if they reason he has a few more hours before the drugs leave Sherlock's system, we should put him on an ativan drip. When he's ready, we can slowly titrate it off safely."

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Sherlock could hear the movement around him, feel the rippling disturbances of air displacement on his hot skin. He seemed to be in the center of a fire and though he was trapped within the flame, his flesh was not scorched and his lungs were not filled with smoke. The darkness above him was raining soot and whispers of voices floated in his mind.

With only one seeing eye, Sherlock turned his head to the sound of a soft feminine voice. 

"Molly," Sherlock croaked and splinted a painful cough. She came into view as though a phantom before a flame: her dark brown eyes were shadowed with emotion and concern. He felt her soft palm on his cheek and her chilled fingers tickled his scalp and Sherlock sighed with relief at the realness of her touch. He could hear her talk but the music of her living voice drowned any comprehension of a spoken language.

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"Sherlock?" Molly said softly when she heard his cracking voice. The sclera of Sherlock's eye was blood shot and his pupil was dilated with incognizance. Feebly, Sherlock reached out his hand but was stopped short by the strict restraint around his arm. 

Molly's heart broke at the pitiful sight of his grasping hand. "Get these bloody things off of him!" Molly said as she pulled on the quick release fabric and John released Sherlock's other hand. "Sherlock, you're safe. Nobody can hurt you anymore. I'm here, John is here." She brought his hand up to her face and she turned and kissed his palm. 

She glowed over him and he no longer believed he was trapped in flame. Shadows of the reality around him were becoming clear and when John spoke, Sherlock knew he was truly safe. "Sherlock, mate...don't worry, we've got you," John said and gingerly placed a hand on Sherlock's chest. 

Sherlock's dazed eyes moved from Molly to John, "I know..." Sherlock whispered as he watched John program and prime an IV pump for his sedation. "But before you put me under again, which I wholly recommend you do as I'm beginning to see snowflakes fall around us..." John laughed at the innocent absurdity and Sherlock too chuckled weakly.

Sherlock licked his chapped lips but failed to lubricate his speech. Beseechingly Sherlock looked up at Molly and his hand shook when he reached for her.

"I'm sorry, Molly," Sherlock said and silently pleaded forgiveness. "I should have trusted you...from the beginning."

John's attention was pulled from the despair in Sherlock's eyes to the increasing numbers representing Sherlock's heart rate. "...Molly..." John said warningly. The blood pressure cuff began to squeeze Sherlock's arm and his breathing was becoming erratic. An alarm was going off indicating the oxygen in Sherlock's blood was falling to threateningly low levels. 

John quickly pressed three buttons on the machine and started the sedation. Sweat covered Sherlock's shaking body and John placed an oxygen mask on Sherlock's face. With no energy left to protest the hands pressing him down into the bed, Sherlock looked up at Molly and said as the sedation overtook his body, "I've loved you...from the begging..."


	10. Chapter 10

"He must still be influenced by all the..." Molly finally spoke a whole minute after Sherlock had lost consciousness, but when she looked up John was gently shaking his head while he sat on the other side of Sherlock's bed. Tired and and feeling delirious, Molly tried unsuccessfully to maintain her composure, "What is it, John? " She stood up and her head spun, she could no longer hear sound of the soft vitals machine monitoring Sherlock. Molly reached out to stabilize herself against the bed, but John was there first. 

John sat Molly down on the edge of Sherlock's bed and held her steady against his body while the darkness in her eyes creeped away. Her warm body soothed John's nerves and when Molly moved her arms around his back, he held her tight. For a time, John and Molly shared the comforting companionship of those who suffered and survived the same tormented night. 

Molly and John released their embrace when the harsh and extended rattling of a tea tray being wheeled across the large room brought a clamor into the stillness. The butler stopped the tray next to a plush settee and quickly left the room. Mycroft waited for the privacy of the closed door before he addressed Molly and John. 

"When my brother was a child, I taught him the foundations to build his Mind Palace," Mycroft said. "He learned from me how to construct each chamber. One for science," Mycroft continued as he approached Sherlock, "space, architecture, Greek philosophy--chambers for all that Sherlock could categorize and study." Mycroft paused and looked up to Molly and John. "I underestimated the need for an understanding of emotions, of sentiment...companionship. Therefore, when you two came into his life, Sherlock was forced to blindly manifest a chamber for each of you--both full of uncategorized emotion."

Mycroft looked to John and Molly, "I say this because you two have been the only ones from whom Sherlock has learned," Mycroft inclined his head to John, "friendship, and," looking now at Molly, "love. Please, be patient with him. After this night's ordeal, chambers will need rebuilding." Mycroft turned and walked out the door, the clicks of his step on the hard wood floor faded into the high ceilings of the room. 

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John and Molly had pulled two chairs over to the tea try and were halfway through the freshly baked scones and clotted cream, but only just starting on the topic of Sherlock's Mind Palace. The darkness of the room defied the passage of the day and suspended the night around them.

Giddy with fatigue, satiated hunger, and playfully cornering Molly with Sherlock's deceleration of love, John pointed to her with a butter knife, freshly loaded with cream, "You know he means it, right?" John said, unable to keep the boyish grin off his face. "When he said he loves you," John added. 

Molly looked down into her tea cup and said dismally, "I know, John."

John let the knife droop in his hands when he heard her dejected tone. "Aren't you happy? Isn't this what you've wanted for ages?" When John did not get a replay, he hitched his eyebrows and proceeded to enthusiastically smother his scone with cream. "Well, I think this will be great," John said, smiling at this plate. 

"John," Molly said seriously. She leaned forward and mirrored his action with her own butterknife, pointing it at him, and trying to compensate for John's silliness, Molly frowned. "Sherlock was just tortured into finally acknowledging those feelings for me only so they could be used as a weapon against his sanity!" She set her knife down, folded her arms across her chest and leaned back into her chair. 

"Granted," John said nonchalantly. "But, like 'Mycroft the Mysterious Wizard' said, 'The chambers Sherlock made for us will need rebuilding." John's voice went mystified and lofty when he imitated Mycroft and he fluttered his fingers in Sherlock's direction as wizard would when casting a spell.

Molly was too exhausted: she could not defend against John's humor, Molly chuckled and she reached for her tea. "Do you really think we could start from here, John?" Molly said seriously. She turned her head and looked at Sherlock. "He saw me when Magnusen was assaulting him." Molly's voice left her when her words recalled the echoing pain of Sherlock's screams. 

John reached out his hand for Molly and when her trembling hand squeezed his, John said, "Molly, Sherlock is a difficult man and a bloody mess, in more ways than one at the moment." Again, John's witty character brought an endearing smile to her lips. "You are the woman he needs--he loves, and tonight he was, almost literally, beaten to death with the reality of it." John sighed and he too turned to look at Sherlock, "Mycroft is right, we will have to be patient with him." 

"Patience be damned," Molly huffed.

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Molly slept on the plush couch several feet behind the reach of the glowing monitor and bedside lamp. Her objections when John told her he would take the first watch, fell on deaf ears and Molly finally conceded herself to the couch. John could just make out the slim silhouette of her curled body under the blanket and amicably appreciated the womanly curve of her slender hips. 

"You better wise up, mate," John mock-whispered as he walked back to Sherlock's bedside after helping himself to the classy table bar across the room. John pulled up a comfortable chair next to Sherlock's sedated form. "For better or worse, she knows your secret now." John sipped Mycroft's expensive scotch from a crystal tumbler and rose his glass in silent cheers to Sherlock. 

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"Do you think we titrated too fast?" Sherlock heard John's voice echo in his head. "He is grimacing quite a bit." 

"I hesitate to give him morphine..." Molly said rationally.

"No morphine!" Sherlock croaked with a hoarse voice, and as Sherlock became more aware, the pain throbbed with greater intensity throughout his body. He groaned with the effort to speak and spears of agony pierced his chest. Sherlock began to shake when his body's sudden awareness struggled with juggling his focus between pain and the feeling of his flesh burning and freezing at the same time. 

Sporadic waves of insanity moved in Sherlock's mind and body as the last potent remnants of Magnusen's drugs held his nervous system hostage. With unexpected speed and strength, Sherlock reached out and seized Molly's arm. His grip was bruising her arm and he pulled her forcibly so that her face was inches from his own. "Get him off of me." Sherlock growled as he felt Magnusen's cold coils of tightening around his chest and the plexus of nerves in his pelvis flared with chemical stimulus. 

"Now, Sherlock," John said, startled at the violence lacing Sherlock's deep voice. He reached to release Molly from Sherlock's grip, but she stopped him.

Molly understood; for Sherlock, the nightmare was not over. "John, you have to leave," Molly said flatly and glared back into Sherlock's possessed eye. 

John became uncomfortable when Sherlock's arousal was too obvious to ignore, "Molly, do you really think this is the time?!"

Feeding off of Sherlock's intensity, Molly said with a dangerous savagery, "Out, John. I have a score to settle with Magnusen." 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ::Rating change for this chapter::

Molly reached up with her free hand and turned off the vitals monitor and removed the electrodes on Sherlock's chest. The soft glow of the bedside lamp softened the tone of her skin yet, the absence of mechanical electricity summoned the blackness forward and it drew sharp angles around her. 

The urgency in his breath increased when Molly leaned in closer to Sherlock's battered face and accepted responsibility for his fate. He saw in her eyes the understanding of his need: his mind was invaded, and her battle with his demons would determine whether Sherlock would retain possession of his sanity. 

The heat of Molly's proximity and the burning in his groin stimulated the chemicals in Sherlock's blood, but the reassurance she gave him quickly and maliciously morphed into shades of his torture. Magnusen's predatory presence rippled over Molly and Sherlock released her in horror. Magnusen's bloodless face sneered with perverted wickedness over Sherlock's body. 

Molly saw the evil possess Sherlock and she stood and held her ground. "Who am I, Sherlock?" Molly said commandingly. Sherlock panicked when he heard Molly's voice come from Magnusen dead presence. Confused reflections of reality and psychosis assaulted Sherlock and he suffocated under the rapine pressure of Magnusen's domination.

She saw the oppression in Sherlock's face and unmercifully allowed the fear to hold him unmoving. Molly wanted Magnusen to show himself so she could defeat him in front of Sherlock. Adrenalin and primitive arousal heated her flesh and she felt a bestial urge see the results of Magnusen's abuse. Molly removed the bandage covering the laceration that tore through Sherlocks brow and down his face. The stitches were finely done, but the scar that will mark Sherlock's face will be undeniably noticeable. Evidence of his survival gripped Molly's desire to claim him as the survival of the fittest.

Seeing now with both eyes, Sherlock watched while Magnusen pealed the gauze from his chest. As more and more of Sherlock's torn flesh was revealed, he experienced again the searing torment of each lashing. Panting and paralyzed while he relived the vile raping of his flesh and mind, his deep breathing painfully stretched each stitch that held his slashed muscles and skin together. Sherlock's bruised erection pulsed with corrupt visions and sensations of Magnusen raping his unwilling arousal.

Molly unbuttoned her shirt, fingers shaking with anticipation. She did not see before her a victim or a man beaten and brutalized: he was a man challenged, undefeated, and ravenous with the unreleased and unrealized male rage of a battle won. What he need now was to take the carnal spoils of war, and she would show him how. 

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Perverse lust rose in Sherlock when Magnusen changed into a feminine form, naked and nefarious before him. "Who am I, Sherlock?" Molly demanded louder. She removed the sheet covering Sherlock's lower half, exposing the entirety of his marred body. 

Molly positioned herself above Sherlock, trapping his hips with her knees and she temptingly held her pelvis above his own. She then took Sherlock's upturned face in her hands and pressed her heat against his chest, as Sherlock fought the phantom of Magnusen's body thrashing on his own. She aggressively kissed his lips, selfishly delighting in his struggle because in his wide eyes, Molly saw her reality overcoming the vision Sherlock saw of Magnusen violating him. She forcibly deepened the kiss and manipulated Sherlock's jaw, opening his mouth and used him for her pleasure. 

Pulling his face only inches away from her own, Molly pressed her pubis against Sherlock's cock and indecently stimulated herself with his shaft, scourging Sherlock of Magnusen's presence. The slick folds of her sex stroked him and he watched in awe as her siren's body was made clear before him.

Sherlock moved his unbroken arm and placed his hand on her hip to still her unquenched female debauchery. Her face was flushed with desire and her eyes darkly reflected the awareness of Sherlock's mind. The scent of her arousal flooded his desire and he hungrily breathed her in. "Who am I, Sherlock?" Molly whispered.

Sherlock deliberately rose his hips and as he slowly entered her he moaned, "Molly." Hearing her name in Sherlock's deep voice fall from his bruised lips caused Molly to impulsively thrust onto him. His depth rutted against her walls and she rolled her hips, using him to caress the heat inside of her flesh.

The wounds and sutures on Sherlock's body jerked with their erotic movements, but he relished in the sensations, experiencing phenomenon of life with the simultaneous pain and pleasure Molly drove into him. 

The exploding heat and sexual cry of his release pulled her visceral desire to the brink. Molly ground and flexed on Sherlock, ruthlessly extending his climax with her own. 

Their dilated eyes remained locked with each other as their hips slowed to a gentle rocking. Sherlock's hand moved behind Molly's head and cradled her face. Thick with the exhaustion of lust and last euphoric influence of her sex and the simulating chemicals leaving his body, Sherlock said, "Did you hear me call to you?" He pulled her closer so the musk of their joined bodies saturated their air. 

"Yes, Sherlock," Molly breathed. "I've been wanting to save you for a long time."

"You have always been the one," Sherlock sighed against her lips, "You will forever be the one to save me." He kissed her with a sweetness Molly had never known, and even after he succumb to fatigue and fell asleep in her arms, she continued to kiss his lips.


End file.
